The U.S. Justice Department is suing the owner of Oakland’s Jerusalem Coffee House over two incidents in which he allegedly booted Jewish customers who wore baseball caps featuring the Star of David.
Footage from an Oct. 26 confrontation shows owner Abdulrahim Harara, who is of Palestinian heritage, telling customer Jonathan Hirsch to “get out of my business” after spotting what he called Hirsch’s “violent hat.”
“You can’t refuse service for a protected class,” Hirsch says in the heated confrontation.
“Yes I can,” Harara says. “Are you a Zionist? Leave!”
Harara did not comment for this story, but Hirsch’s attorney, Omer Wiczyk, said he was “pleased to learn about the Civil Rights Division’s decision to file suit against the coffee shop and its owner.”
In the suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Justice Department accuses Harara and Native Grounds LLC, the owners of the cafe, of violating Title II of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits private businesses from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, and national origin.
The lawsuit is the latest local example of the Trump administration’s efforts to tamp down what it has called rampant antisemitism across the country.
The lawsuit also cites an incident in which another Jewish customer, Michael Radice, was allegedly booted from the shop. Both men have filed lawsuits against the cafe.
Radice’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.
Federal attorneys noted that the cafe sold a drink called “Sweet Sinwar” — an apparent homage to the slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — and “Iced in Tea Fada” on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel.
Harara previously denied that “Sweet Sinwar” was a reference to the Hamas leader, stating that it is a common surname among Palestinians. According to the genealogy website Forebears.io, Sinwar is not among the 1,000 most common Palestinian surnames.
“We want to redirect the conversation to the fact that there’s a genocide,” Harara said in October, adding that he had lost relatives in the war in Gaza.
The Standard previously reported that Hirsch has a history of engaging in loud public fights about the Gaza war, local politics, and in one case, a road-rage incident.
The lawsuit seeks to stop the cafe from engaging in “discriminatory polices and practices” and seeks unspecified steps to “remedy the effects of past unlawful conduct.”